Daily Log #8 (Disoriented)

This was a strange day. I have always been an anxious person who worries a lot about the future and I brood over the past. Both things that I should do a lot less of and I know it. The last few days, besides sleep problems, I've been more anxious than normal for no particular reason, I think. I've had panic attacks before and I know when they're coming on and I know how to calm myself before the attack can get off of the ground.

This time seems a little different because I'm not running the negative thoughts through my head. As a matter of fact, I've been feeling rather excited about writing the blog everyday along with my other writing. So when anxiety seems to be anxiety for the sake of anxiety, I have a little more trouble keeping it down.

Part of the problem stems from the medication, part of it stems from pain, and part of it stems from no sleep. Normally I would include negative thoughts in that bunch, but today it doesn't apply.


As I wrote in my blog last night, I decided to take some ambian with the hope that it would help me get a little more sleep than I've been getting, which it did. One of the side effects of ambian is feeling groggy the next day so when I felt that way this morning I brushed it off, but the grogginess continued. One thing I need to mention is about the nap I had yesterday afternoon. I slept for about an hour and a half, but I had the hardest time waking up. I felt like I was looking at the world through a tunnel when I got up and it was hard to focus on anything. My wife kept asking me if I was okay and I said I was just tired. Well that same feeling came back this afternoon. I was extremely tired with a headache and that tunnel vision kind of thing and I felt a little disoriented.

Because of my increasing restless leg problems, my doctor had me double my dosage of requip. I started that about the same time all of this started. The weird thing is that my fatigue seems to be worse. So instead of just the fatigue in my legs causing pain, I'm feeling it in my upper arms. It's a tense feeling all over like the muscles are being squeezed from the outside while they try to resist and push outward. This type of fatigue gives you the feeling that if you just move a little or get in a different position you'll feel better. After you get in the new position you feel okay for about 5 seconds and the whole thing starts again. This fatigue really likes to attack my weak points and make my back feel worse.

I've been taking slow release Oxycontin for pain since last October (2009) and when the pain spikes I take Norco/Vicodin. The oxycontin has made things a little more manageable and I take less norco because of it. Shortly after I started taking it, I noticed a muscle twitch every now and then, but after the surgery I'm taking a higher dose and the twitching seems to be worse. Now the fatigue is going up as well and I'm more anxious.

Tomorrow I want to do some reading up on long term effects of oxycontin. Maybe the increased fatigue is being caused by that.

Anyway, by this afternoon I was so wound up that my head felt like it was going to explode and I was going crazy. Anxiety galore! I also noticed that my depression was spiking upward like a thermometer in death valley on the hottest day of the year. I felt agitated, anxious, depressed and in pain all over. I had to get out of the house thinking it would get my mind off of things and I'd calm down so went out to dinner. Maybe not such a good idea because my back started hurting more and the fatigue started flaring worse. I made it through it though.

It's a few hours later and things have started to settle down a bit except for the muscle twitching. It's a weird feeling when a muscle on your scalp starts ticking! I've taken all my evening medications and I'm getting very tired again.

This whole non-stop pain can be very energy and time consuming. Plus a little scary when there's no way to know when it will stop. It's like being put on one of those mid-evil stretching tables that the inquisition used to torture people and not knowing when or how you'll be released.

I hope tomorrow will be better. Good night every one.

Thanks for reading! Spread the link of this blog around to anyone you may know who's suffering from pain or living a around someone who is... Even if you think they're faking it, because chances are that they're not. Chronic pain can be caused by a lot of things and it's possible there is not medical evidence as to why it's happening. So many things happen within the body that doctors sometimes don't have a clue how to fix the problem.